Ethical Issues and Management

Ethical Issues and Management

Ethical Issues and Management – Termination
Managers face a variety of moral and ethical issues when dealing with the termination of an employee. There are several ways that businesses justify termination; cause, poor performance, and downsizing are a few (Trevino & Nelson, 2007). Termination generally involves honesty and fairness, so managers have to deal with conflicting values and morals. Remembering that the employee to be terminated is usually not the only person affected, can help the manager to conduct responsible management practices. There are several things a manager can do to make the termination easier on the employee to be terminated and on his or her self; be brief, do the termination in person and on neutral ground, keep the information private and have a human resources representative available for the employee to talk to afterward (Trevino & Nelson, 2007).. Although these steps can make the process easier, terminating someone’s employment is never enjoyable.
Termination for “cause”
The phrase “termination for cause” can have many meanings. Different companies view “cause” in different ways. “Cause” is an umbrella term for stealing, fraud, forgery, and violence; to name a few (Trevino & Nelson, 2007). An employee caught stealing from the petty cash drawer could be fired for cause. The manager who has to terminate the employee may disagree with the action or feel empathy for the employee, but the manager can not let emotion be an issue. Even if the manager knows that the employee has been having a hard time financially and promised to pay the money back the manager has to think about how the employee’s actions affected others. Other employees could have been blamed for the ordeal. The stolen money is property of the business. Perhaps the petty cash money is used for office supplies. Other employees may be unable to do their jobs because there is not enough money to purchase the needed office supplies. This could cause...